"No Hard Drive" Message on my.tablotv.com

Support & Troubleshooting
1

I bought a Tablo last week. Everything is working except every hard drive I connect (3 so far) is not seen and I receive the infamous “No Hard Drive” message.

I submitted a ticket and received a response to check the power on the usb ports by connecting a phone. It charges just fine.

They then asked me to put it in remote debug mode so they could look at the logs. Since then its been silence from support. I get no response back. I tried calling the support line this morning and was on hold for an hour when I was disconnected.

I’m hoping that someone may be able to suggest something I haven’t tried. Or that support will see this and respond to my open ticket (Ticket number 28463)

Here is what I have tried: (on 3 external Hard Drives - 2 powered one not)

  1. Connect directly to the Tablo (powered drives only)
  2. Connect drive through a powered USB hub (powered and unpowered drives)
  3. Do a complete format on one of the drives using linux (formatted to ext4 - which I understand is what tablo uses)

The drives used are:
WDBBGB0040HBK-NA WD My Book 4TB
WDBAAF0010HBK-00 WD My Book Essentials 1 TB
RPHD-UG3 IOMega eGo

I really don’t want to return the Tablo, but I’m out of ideas and without support from the company I’m fearing I my have no other option.

Any help would be appreciated.

Ron

2

Use any one of those drives, connect it to a computer and delete all partitions from the drive so it is in a non-formatted state. Basically like the drive was brand new with no FAT32, NTFS or ext4 format. There is no need for you to format it in the ext4 format because the Tablo formats the drive for you

Then turn off the Tablo by unplugging the power cord, connect the HDD and then plug the power cord back in.

3

I hear you on the support. Several times I had been waiting for a response and, when I finally did get through, was told that they did respond but I just didnt get it. SPAM folder was checked daily but it wasnt there. They eventually did come through though.

My recently defective Tablo went into a state of failure where at first it corrupted a hard drive, then started seeing them intermittently, and eventually would not recognize ANY drive connected via either USB port. I did eventually get through to Tablo support and they sent me a new unit. So far, so good, but the first one only lasted a little over 2 months before completely devolving into a mess. Good luck.

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I don’t know what TAblo you have but as a new user look into something else. I had two of them. One was replacment because of so much problems. Second one was no better then first. So I return and get my money back. Read all the problems with new Tablo that other user have. You have a chance to return or you will get stuck with it. Some others tell you that they had no problem for years but that could be the old Tablo. The new one have a problem with over heating and loosing connection to the devices which has nothing to do with Hard drive…
Plus the company don’t want to say that there is a Hardware problem but only a firmware… It’s up to you which way you want to go but look around…

5

Thanks everyone. Support actually got back to me this morning and went in remotely and were able to access and format my hard drive. I checked via my phone (as I am not home right now) and status shows my hard drive as “syncing”. So I am now hopeful.

Of interest for those who seek e-mail support. Every time you respond to the email it puts you in the back of their queue. So when I pinged them to find status, all I was really doing was putting myself in the back of the line. Seems like a pretty poor way of handling tickets, but that is what they do.

Thanks again.

Ron

3 Likes
6

I have to agree, this is a poor practice. I manage a support desk for a media company. I do not agree with this procedure or policy at all.

When a ticket is created, it should be assigned to a group and then a person.

The group responsible for the issue (say the hw team), and then a member of the hw team is the owner of the ticket (say jimmy).

It should be jimmy’s responsibility to manage the issue/ticket through to completion. There is no reason you should be placed at the back of the queue if you email in asking for an update.

That way client and support staff dialog or transactions are recorded as they happen.

The way this works currently is not efficient or an effective way to manage tickets. Many of us work and are not at home during the week. If you email me and ask me to check something, I can’t do it remotely from work because my network at work won’t allow access to my Tablo, and I also have kids that play sports. I don’t get home Most nights until after 9 pm est.

Although I might be able to get my it buddies to allow me remote access to my Tablo from the office if I needed it, many Tablo users might now have that ability.

That being said, I see many instances where people don’t seem to “see or get a reply from support” posted here on the forum. That’s not good and very frustrating and gives Tablo a bad image.

It tells me there may not be enough support staff to handle the volume of issues they are receiving. One way Tablo can separate themselves is by providing proper response times, improving them, following up accordingly, and developing and SLA’s and OLA’s for their support staff.

They can extend their hours of operation, and be available on weekends for support calls and or email support.

I don’t know the ticket volume or call volume, but I do know that bouncing a ticket to the bottom of the queue because someone asked for an update or even provided information they were asked to provide is not a good support practice.

I’ve used support once and it was an ok experience. If anyone from Tablo wants to talk about my post, they have my information. And I may not be looking for a job right now, but if something changes in my current situation, I would be interested in working with them. And I am mplementing the same ticketing system they use and I can tell you that a case update will not be putting tickets or case at the back of the queue. My clients would go crazy if that were the case.

Providing a high level of support can improve the product and it can really make the product a must have for the consumer.

My .02, off the soapbox.

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